Twitter develops tools to fight rise of spam activity

Twitter is developing tools to protect users from unwanted and unsolicited followers after identifying a potential rise of spamming across the micro-blogging site.

According to Nielsen Online, Twitter traffic grew by 1,763 per cent in the past year, from 135,000 users in April 2008 to 2.5 million users in April this year.

The rise in popularity has attracted the attention of brands, including Andrex, Marmite and O2, but Twitter has recognised that spammers have also used the site, via automated programmes, to gain multiple targets.

Spamming has occurred on other sites including MySpace, which now uses captcha codes when members add friends, to protect other users from unwanted approaches.

Last year Facebook was awarded £578 million in damages following a court case against spammers, whom it accused of obtaining user passwords and bombarding them with messages about sexual products and drugs.

A Twitter spokeswoman said it now uses captcha codes at the account-creation stage but that it was looking into further ways to prevent spam activity, which it acknowledges as a potential problem.

“Our team is working on determining the best modes for combating spam to protect the quality of our product,” said the spokeswoman. “We take spamming seriously and are working to suspend any accounts we feel are harassing the community.”

Gemma Young, account manager at communications agency Mandate, which manages Andrex’s Twitter feed, said that while she admits the brand will initiate following someone without being followed by that person first, she doesn’t class the brand’s messages as spam.

“Twitter isn’t a tool for us to just randomly follow and bombard lots of people with information about the brand. Everyone we choose is related to our charity partners or someone who we see is interested in the brand. There’s no guarantee they will want to follow us back,” said Young.

But Antony Mayfield, head of social media at digital agency iCrossing, said brands need to be careful about following Twitter users unless they have clearly been identified as someone with a relevant interest in that brand, as consumers won’t distinguish them from spammers.

“It presents a danger as they’ll be tarnished with the same brush. Sometimes there’s little difference between brands and spammers. By acting like a spammer you’ll be degrading your brand,” he warned.

Brands agreed Twitter was a prime place to have conversations with customers but said measures were in place to ensure they didn’t damage their reputations.

Simon Morris, marketing director of LoveFilm, said: “If that’s where people want to talk to you then you should be there. But brands need to be careful about what they push.”

Online retailer ASOS has an official Twitter account, but only follows its own members of staff.

Ilana Fox, community manager at ASOS, said any communication needs to be between real people. “As well as the official account, most of the staff members tweet, but the main ASOS account doesn’t follow people. Only a specific person, not the brand, should follow a customer,” she said.

Kerry Bridge, head of digital media communications EMEA at Dell, which has a Twitter feed with more than half a million followers, said, “Our activity on Twitter is about building good relationships with people and communicating information, so we wouldn’t follow just anyone.”

Source: New Media Age

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http://www.nma.co.uk/twitter-develops-tools-to-fight-rise-of-spam-activity/3000739.article

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